BANGLADESH is willing to work and move together with a partnership to create a blue economy to secure sustainable development among the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal after a peaceful settlement of maritime boundary disputes with neighbouring India and Myanmar. As the dispute has been settled, it raises hopes of extracting plenty of resources from the Bay. To properly extract the resources from the Bay, we need knowledge-economic support in research, observation and surveillance. The government needs to create policy frameworks to attract private investment for the blue economy by keeping the country’s interest as the top priority and not by letting conglomerates profit excessively. We think there is no recourse but to develop competency to extract the ‘believed resources’ by taking collaborative help from the oceanographic experts. Besides, the government should adopt zero tolerance policy against corruption in this case as corruption gobbles all of our good deeds.
The necessity of blue economy came into light as the country sought partnership for sustainable economic growth leveraging the blue ocean in a two-day international workshop in Dhaka. Featuring the blue economy as inclusive and people-centric, Foreign Minister AH Mahmud Ali said the collaboration must be based on certain universal principles of engagement – mutual trust, respect, mutual benefits, and equitable sharing of benefits. Such collaboration has to be in research, observation, surveillance and in respect of sharing of analyses, outcomes, and observations. The sovereign rights of Bangladesh have been established on more than 118,000 sq km of maritime territory, 200 nautical miles (NM) of exclusive economic zone, and 354 NM of continental shelf after positive verdicts of the International Court.
The Foreign Minister laid emphasis on the space for further investment and exploration of marine resources, to overcome the challenges ahead relating to regulation, legislation, plans, institutional frameworks and capacity building in academic and research institutions as well as regulatory bodies or mechanisms. As the Bangladesh is at a nascent stage of development and assessment of its blue economy, it is essential to create robust ‘maritime domain awareness’ among people-at-large, communities, policy-makers across the legislature, and also the executive.
Blue economy became a buzzword for sustainable development particularly in drafting the post-2015 development goals. With the swift ending of resources in lands, the world is becoming more dependent on marine resources and such dependence for food, nutrition, mineral, drinking water, and electricity will be increased in the forthcoming days to meet the huge demands of people. To extract the mineral resources under the seabed and other oceanic resources Bangladesh needs to have the experts who could understand what the ocean is and have a sound knowledge of the regional ocean, Indian Oceanographer S Prasan Kumar said.
The government ought to come up with a comprehensive marine policy covering oceanic education and training that would make us self-dependent and sovereign on our part of the Indian Ocean. Though the role of the private sector is vital for resource collection, we hope the government will welcome competent organizations only. Any type of corruption, partisan, and nepotism should be unacceptable.
